


Ghosts and Other Inconveniences

by I_Can_Vibe_With_That



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Character Death, F/F, I can't believe I forgot that one, Lance (Voltron)-centric, M/M, Mistaken Identity, Mistaken identity might be a little off but shhhhh, Okay maybe i didn't forget persay, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rated teen for swearing and possibly graphic scenes, Slow Burn-ish, Witches, but nothing explicit, its okay, tagging is hard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2019-08-09 20:13:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16456481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Can_Vibe_With_That/pseuds/I_Can_Vibe_With_That
Summary: Lance was not planning on dealing with a ghost. Especially on one of his good days.-Lance Álvarez-McClain was a normal guy. He went to school, had a job, had friends, went to parties. So what if he could see ghosts? It wasn't that bad, not usually at least.





	1. There goes a Good Day

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a mess. It's just for fun so please don't take it too seriously, I sure won't. I'll try and post semi-frequently, but I'm definitely gonna try for longer chapters, so It might take some time. Anyway, enjoy reading I guess?
> 
> P.S. I write on my phone, so a bunch of the formatting might be weird, sorry!

Today had been a suspiciously good day.

Like, everything was going right for him. Which was very much not normal and had Lance on high alert.  It's not that Lance was unlucky, it’s just that his days didn't usually go this smoothly. Or any type of smoothly really. He is much more used to many different mishaps messing up whatever he's doing. Like a wet floor on the stairs, or gum on the bus seat, or really,  _really_ bad bed head. He is partially to blame for that, but not completely! And isn't that what really counts?

So yeah, today had been a good day. He’d actually gotten a good night’s sleep and woken up at his first alarm. He’d had time to make a nice breakfast. He didn't burn his toast. Lance had made it in time to work, and got that really cute girl’s number. Plus, no one bothered him the entire morning.

Today was a really good day.  So of course, something had to happen.

And of course it was because Lance decided to be healthy for once.

In his bright and cheery mood, he started thinking,  _ I got off of work earlier today, why don't I just walk home from the subway station instead of waiting for the bus?  _ He didn't live that far, and it had been a while since he had walked home. He was thinking,  _why not?_ Which was a terrible choice. And completely ruined his day. And possibly his next few months.

The walk didn’t start off bad. In fact, it started off also suspiciously good. 

The weather was perfectly how he liked it. It was warm and sunny, and he didn’t need to wear a sweater. There was a nice breeze, and not many people were walking outside along the sidewalk.  He passed by three different dogs, and was allowed to pet all of them. The cafe near the first intersection on his way home was giving out free samples of his favourite one of their cookies. No one was yelling.

It was peaceful.

That lasted about two blocks. 

Things started to get much worse as he rounded the corner of the last street towards his apartment. 

It started with him running into a person. Or rather, him getting run into by another person. They shouldered him roughly, causing him to stumble. When they turned to face him, their eyes were blazing.   “Watch it.” They snarled. Then they turned and continued down the street, as if they hadn’t run into him. They were dressed weirdly, In a strange combination of casual sweatpants, a tight black 3/4 sleeve shirt, what appeared to be a dark red cloak, and at least half a pound of jewelry covered in symbols Lance didn't recognize. But hey, who was Lance to judge? He was dressed in a blue muscle tank and his ugly work khakis.

What had really caught his attention was the stranger’s eyes. They were dark, an discernible colour, and so full of fire that Lance felt the sight of them was burned into his memory. Even with the intense glare, they were beautiful.

But also, that stranger was super rude.

The stranger who was presumably a guy was also too far for retaliation at this point. So Lance sighed and continued on.

Now, the sidewalk was a lot more cramped. It was a lot harder to walk and he was constantly getting bumped into.  This is how it usually was. He could deal with this.

 

* * *

Lance was walking down the sidewalk, -or trying, at least- minding his own business, when something ahead of him caught his eye. 

It was a man.

Now, under normal circumstances the dude would still catch his eye, he was suuuuper attractive. But these weren't normal circumstances, and that's not why he caught Lance’s eye this time.  There was something off about this man. The man’s colours looked de-saturated and dark, as if he was cast in shadows. He had a metal arm, and although it was a bright and sunny day, no light reflected off it. His movements didn’t make any sounds, and the ends of his hair didn’t move, even with the prominent breeze. This man was a ghost.

Well fuck.

As one of only people who could see ghosts consistently in the country, and the only one who could see them in this city, Lance has had to deal with many ghosts. And he's hated it ever since he was 9 and the novelty of being a kid and having imaginary friends stopped being okay.

He was having a good day. He was not going to let a stupid ghost ruin it for him. He’d help it out tomorrow, or whenever they cross paths again.

All he had to do was keep walking, and not look.

Don't look. Just walk straight ahead and ignore it. Don't look. Don't look–

“Hey! Can you see me?”

_...Shit _

Well, this was inevitable. Goodbye good day.  Lance pulled out his phone, pretending to answer a phone call. “Hi, who's this?” He was not going to make the mistake of being a grown-ass adult and talking to thin air again. People still gave him weird looks. Fair enough.

The ghost stopped and stared at him confusedly. “Are you, are you–?”

“Yes of course I'm talking to you. Who else would I be talking to?” Lance looked pointedly at the ghost and tried to subtly nod in the direction he had been heading. He didn't want to be that one asshole that just stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and talked on the phone. Especially when the sidewalk was as packed as this.

He kept walking.

“So, what did you say your name was? I'm Lance by the way.” 

He hoped no one found it suspicious that he was introducing himself to the person who called him, but that was the least of his issues at the moment.  

“My name is _T_ \-- _a_ **_\--- ---_ ** _r---n-_ , but I usually go by Shiro.” The ghost said from behind him.

Lance could see his apartment building. He was almost home. It would be a lot easier to talk to the ghost if he could get it back to his apartment. Was it his imagination, or was the sidewalk getting more packed? No, he was definitely pushing through more people at this point.

“Cool, cool, cool. I’m just walking home now, like I’m literally on the sidewalk right now, so I'll talk to you again when I get home. I’m not that far. Kay thanks bye.” Lance put his phone back in his pocket. 

He started to push through the crowds harder. Okay, there weren't usually this many people on the sidewalk. He considered maybe just running on the street, but no. He was not risking becoming a ghost just to save one.

He made it back to him building mostly unscathed. Lance into the elevator hallway to find two people he didn't recognize. Thankfully, they were travelling together. He waited for to go and pressed the up button again. And again. And again.

He kept pushing it until an empty elevator opened up. He got on and pressed floor 8, waiting for the doors to close. 

Great. 

He was now in an empty elevator with a ghost. A ghost that he was taking into his apartment to help. 

This was gonna be so much fun. Not.


	2. You'd think he'd get used to violent deaths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance's day gets a little bit worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I kinda changed the formatting a little bit. Now the spaces between the paragraphs are larger because its too much work to fix it, but its fine. I hope y'all like this, it was supposed to be longer, but I'm trying to post relatively close together, so yeah. Hopefully later chapters will break 2,000 words.
> 
> Happy reading

Well this was worse.

 

While Lance was walking through the hall on the 8th floor, so was one of his neighbours. She also happened to be carrying a tray of iced coffees. And was also not paying attention.

 

Long story short, Lance was now covered in cold coffee and he had a ghost following him through his apartment building. Yay. Lance was already very tired of today. 

 

They stopped outside his apartment door.

 

“Just wait here, I’ll be back in a sec.” Lance unlocked his door, kicking his shoes into the closet, and walked into his room. He grabbed the mini spellbook off his nightstand, and the tray holding his basket of ingredients and supplies from his closet and went back out to where Shiro was waiting.

 

When Shiro saw him, he raised an eyebrow. “You’re not planning to exorcise me in the hallway, are you?” he asked jokingly, eyeing Lance’s supplies.

 

“No. I’d need a pentagram for that and that’s inside.” Lance sat down in his doorway and began preparing the ingredients. Unfortunately, this was a spell that involved smoke, so Lance had to do extra work to make sure he didn’t set off the fire alarms. As he got to work crushing and prepping the herbs, -as well as the extra things he needed to prevent smoke- he noticed Shiro's face. He looked like he wasn’t quite sure if he believed him or not.

 

As Lance added the final herb to his ‘cauldron’ (it was an old metal bowl he could no longer use for food), he began to chant the spell from the mini spellbook Allura had given him. While chanting, he lit the candle and grabbed his needle. Passing it through the flames, he shook it a bit to cool it down and pricked his thumb, letting the blood drip into the bowl. Still chanting, he lit the end of a bamboo skewer with the candle and threw it into the bowl, setting its contents on fire. The smoke detectors stayed quite.

 

Lance grabbed a bandaid. “Stick your hand in the fire.”

 

“What? I’m not-”

 

“It won’t hurt you I promise, you just need to stick your hand in the fire.” Lance stuck a bandaid on his thumb. He’d probably wash it later.

 

Shiro looked at the fire. It was still going strong despite the contents of the bowl just being ash. “Alright, I’m trusting you.” Shiro said as he placed his hand in the fire.

 

The flames turned white and then died down quickly, leaving nothing left in the bowl. 

 

“Okay you can come in now.” Lance said, picking up his tray. He brought it back to his room, changing out of his ruined shirt and pants into something more comfortable.

 

Dressed in an old tshirt and sweatpants, he walked out of his room to see Shiro looking around his apartment. As he went to close and lock the front door,(he forgot Shiro wouldn’t be able to), Shiro called out to him. “What were you doing in the hallway?”

 

“It was to let you in the apartment. I have wards set up to keep out the unwanted things” Lance pointed to the various sigils painted in the corners, as well as at his mini altar near the back of the living room. “There, there, there, there, some in the kitchen, the bathroom, my bedroom, the guest room, there are wards in every room in here.”

 

Shiro floated closer to one off the sigils. “That’s some pretty intense warding.”

 

“I’ve gotten some pretty intense unwanted things.”

 

Shiro looked back at him questioning, but Lance shook it off. “Anyway, let's deal with your problems.”

 

-

 

“I don't know how I even got here. God, **_-e-t-_**  must be freaking out. Guess it's his luck that his last family just disappears.” Shiro was mumbling to himself, but because Lance has super hearing when it comes to ghosts, he heard everything.

 

“Yeah, so about that,” Lance looked away from the spirit. Even though this isn't the first time he's had to break the news to people, it's still really hard to look people in the eye and tell them they're dead.

 

“So my powers, well the ones I have, are really specific? Like, they don't really develop, so new things never happen to me?” For some reason, Lance's voice kept going up at the end of his sentences as if he was asking a question. He didn't know why, but it almost felt  _ wrong _ to tell this ghost it was dead.

 

“Lance, what's wrong?” Shiro’s voice was soft and calming, which didn't make it any easier.

 

Labce hesitated, it still felt wrong, but what  else could it be? “Uhm, you're...dead.” he finally said.

 

Shiro stared blankly at him. “I-I’m what?”

 

“You're dead. That's the only reason I'd be able to see you but no one else would.” Lance's phone clattered on the floor. He picked it up and sighed in relief at the unbroken screen. He didn't notice that his leg was bouncing that hard.

 

“Oh.”

 

_ Oh indeed Shiro, oh indeed. _

 

Lance looked up at Shiro. “Your kid will probably be fine. Child services will find him and I'm pretty sure he'll be fine.” 

 

Shiro laughed bitterly. “Yeah, that didn't work so well the last time. Plus,  **_h-- -g-- --- -f --e --s--m, --- --x- --o--e -o t--e -i- --l- -- t-- p---c-._ ** ”

 

Huh. That was strange. Usually it wasn’t entire sentences that were blocked. But it wouldn’t be the first time his assumptions  about dead people were wrong.

 

“You never know, could work this time.”

 

Shiro’s face contorted in a grimace. “He's still working through some things. I'm just worried about what he might do. He's a witch like you.” 

 

Lance waved his hands in front of him. “Oh, I'm not a witch.”

 

“No? I just assumed, with all the spell casting and seeing ghosts. I thought all things to do with the Veil was magic.” Shiro was beginning to float through Lance's swivel chair.

 

“Nah, that’s something else. And everyone can do basic spells like that. It doesn’t matter. Anyway, back to the point. You’re dead, and still around.” 

 

“Yeah, I still can’t believe that. It doesn’t feel like I’m dead.” Shiro’s presence was pushing Lance’s papers off the desk. Shiro reached down to pick them up, but his hand went right through them. Lance left them there.

 

“I wouldn’t know. But you obviously have some unfinished business with that kid you mentioned. You’d probably pass on once you make sure he’s okay.” 

 

“His name is  **_-ei-- K---n-_ ** , and-”

 

Lance cut him off. “That doesn’t really help me. For some reason I can’t understand certain details about your life, so we’re gonna have to try something else.”

 

“Oh. Well, you’re the one who’s done this before, where do we start?”

 

-

 

Research. Lots and lots if research.

 

From talking to Shiro a little but, Lance decided that he must have recently died. Maybe in the last 5-ish years or so, based in his knowledge of pop culture references.

 

This was good. It meant that the person that Shiro was trying to contact was most likely alive still. Last time he had to explain to a ghost that their loved one was also not-alive, it hadn’t been pretty.

 

He’d had to call Allura to make him some new warding spells.

 

“So Shiro, what’s  the last thing you remember doing? The more details the better.” Lance said, while opening up a new tab on his laptop. It was time for his least favourite part of helping ghosts.

 

“I think I was in an alleyway, yelling at someone, and then I was tackled from behind. I think I might have been stabbed.”

 

_ Jesus. _ Of course he was likely stabbed in a back alley somewhere. It was just one of those days for Lance, wasn’t it.

 

“Great.” 

 

He searched for police reports and news articles on violent crimes happening in alleys. Occasionally he would ask Shiro for more details, like what city it was in (this one), what time of day it was (morning-afternoon), and if he could remember any other details (he couldn’t).

 

4 hours, 3 coffees, and 5 ½ years worth of vomit inducing photos of stab victims, and Lance had nothing. There was no trace of Shiro anywhere.

 

Lance frowned. That wasn’t very helpful. 

 

“Is there anything else you can remember? Because you’re nowhere on the internet.” 

 

Shiro’s eyebrows furrowed for a minute, but then he shook his head. He was staring at a photo on one of Lance’s bookshelves. It was of Lance and his older brother when they were younger.

 

“Well,” Lance said as he got up and stretched. “It is well past 9 o’clock and i haven’t had dinner yet. We’ll continue researching tomorrow.” Lance dropped his arms and watched Shiro. He had reached out towards the picture like he wanted to touch it, but his hand passed through the frame.

 

“You can hang out here if you’d like, or go where ever it is you ghosts disappear of to.” Shiro nodded, but it was clear he wasn’t listening. 

 

Lance walked to his room to change. He felt off; the picture were really disturbing, and Lance didn’t like the fact that he couldn’t find Shiro on the internet. Sure, maybe he missed something, but for a death like Shiro’s…

 

Whatever. It was time for Lance to do what he always did when he was hungry and distressed. It was time to visit Hunk.

-  
  
  


 

 

 

(And Pidge too)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again, please let me know what you think of my work, if you have any comments or suggestions, please. Go wild.
> 
> -Call me Kit


	3. Friends always make things better, right?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance hopes that familiar things will help balance out the way the day's been going so far.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I don't really know what happened. This just kinda happened. I hope you guys enjoy!

_Ring...ring..ring…_

 

“Hello?”

 

“Hey dude, you still up for movie night?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

After texting Pidge, Lance stood quietly in the elevator. He had his ear buds on him, but didn’t feel like listening to any music. It wouldn’t fit the mood. Plus, he was too distracted to focus on music.

 

So distracted in fact, that when the elevator dinged on ground floor he jumped.

 

He was still unsettled from everything surrounding Shiro. Dealing with dead people never did get any easier.

 

The lobby was empty, as was expected, but even though he’d lived in this building for a while and had gone to impromptu movie night several times, today was different. The empty lobby had an eerie quality to it that was making Lance’s skin crawl.

 

Must just be the day.

 

Nevertheless, Lance strolled out of the front doors and began walking towards Hunk’s apartment. It wasn’t far, and he needed the fresh air.

 

Besides, the city was beautiful at night, with all of its bright colours in stark contrast with the dark night sky. Even if the light pollution meant he couldn’t see the stars or even the moon.

 

The streets weren’t as busy as they were earlier today, but there were certainly people still out and about.

 

Most notably was one figure that was down the street from Lance.

 

The figure paused, and in the low light from the surrounding apartment buildings Lance could see them frowning at their phone. They shook it a few times, tapping frantically at the screen before huffing shoving it in their pocket. They closed their eyes and did a few quick gestures with their hands. Suddenly their eyes snapped open, and Lance could have sworn that their eyes glowed gold for a second. They quickly looked around and apparently did not find what they were looking for, because they huffed and brought their phone out again, seemingly texting something.

 

At this point Lance finally recognised the figure. It was the same person that ran into him earlier that afternoon, still dressed in that dark red cloak.

 

“Hey!” Lance called out to them, startling them into looking up at him. “What the heck?”

 

They blinked at him, and furrowed their eyebrows. “Are you talking to me?”

 

He was closer to them now, enough to confirm that yes, it was a guy who was standing in front of him. “Yeah I am. Dude, what the heck?” Lance stopped in front of the guy, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jean jacket.

 

The guy narrowed his eyes at Lance. “Do I know you?”

 

“You ran into me, and didn’t even apologize. That was super rude.” even in the poor lighting, Lance was starting to notice small things about this guy. Like how he was noticeably shorter than Lance, or how his hair was kinda long, sort of in a mullet-esque style. Or how his face was unbelievably, unfairly pretty.

 

Focus Lance, this dude’s a jerk.

 

The guy blinked at him a few more times, which was kind of adorable. And very much _not helping him focus._ Remember, this dude ran into him and didn’t even apologize, you can’t-

 

“Oh, sorry.”

 

Well shit then.

 

“Uh, no problem I guess. Um, I’m Lance by the way.” Lance rubbed at the back of his neck. Now that the guy apologised there was no reason to talk to him, but he felt he should.

 

“I’m-” the guy started, but was cut off by a ping from his phone. He stared at it for a few seconds then swore quite loudly, startling Lance. Suddenly, the guy started running up the street to where Lance had come from.

 

“Wait! What’s-” but the guy was already turning the corner.

Lance blinked at where he last saw the flick of a red cloak. That was super rude, and he rescinded all the nice comments he made about mystery guy.

 

Although the look of panic Lance got a glimpse of as the guy ran past made him pause. Oh well, not like they’d see eachother again.

 

A ping came from his own phone as Lance continued on his walk. It was a text from Pidge.

 

***Hacker voice*: Gonna be late**

 

Lance frowned at that. Pidge never came late to movie night, not since the time she showed up thirty minutes after him and was subjected to three hours of “stupid fucking cash-grab movies”.

 

**Me: You ok?**

 

***Hacker voice*: Yeah just helping a friend**

 

**Me: K**

 

**Me: We’re watching thor**

 

***Hacker voice*: Which**

 

**Me: Ragnarok**

 

***Hacker voice*: Fuck yeah**

 

Lance snorted at that. He stuck his phone back into his jacket pocket and continued to Hunk’s place.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Hunk lived in a really nice apartment.

 

Well, they all lived in nice apartments, -there was nothing but nice apartments in the area they lived in- but Hunk’s was _really_ nice.

 

Lance was doubly reminded of this as he walked into the buildings lobby. It was clean and decorated in a modern style. The front desk’s counter was made of what looked like marble. The person working there didn’t look like they actually hated their job.

 

One of Lance’s favourite things about Hunk’s place -other than Hunk- was the elevators. They were bright silver and were always sleek and shiny and never had fingerprints on them somehow. When he stepped into the elevator, there wasn’t the smell of dust or stale air, but of fresh clean, filtered air.

 

He pressed the button for Hunk’s floor.

 

-

 

When the elevator stopped at the 10th floor, Lance was already significantly calmer. He didn’t know if it was the building, or the prospect of movie night with his best friends, but Lance was starting to consider that maybe he was exaggerating the sucky feelings from earlier today.

 

**_Ping!_ **

 

**The Bae: Hey are you almost here?**

 

**Me: Yeah I just got out of the elevator**

 

**Me: Oh btw**

 

**Me: Pidge is coming late**

 

**The Bae: Why?**

 

Lance stopped in front of Hunk’s apartment and knocked.

 

A second later, Hunk opened the door.

 

“She’s helping a friend, apparently.”

 

“She’s helping a friend?” Hunk asked as he let Lance into his apartment. “But she hates being later than you on movie nights.”

 

“Yeah well I guess her friend needed the help pretty badly.” Lance toed off his shoes as he watched Hunk disappear into the kitchen. “What’d you make?” he called out.

 

“You sounded like you were upset, so I just did movie snacks.” Lance could hear Hunk something shuffling around. It sounded like metal bowls.

 

Lance walked into Hunk’s living room. It was like a childhood fantasy come true. Hunk had pushed his couch to the side and had constructed the **best** pillowfort Lance had ever seen. He couldn’t even tell how some of the blanket were being held up. Hunk was obviously magic.

 

...Well, not literally anyway.

 

Hunk was bringing bowls full of movie and snack foods into the fort and leaving them there. “Go in and pick a movie, I just have to bring a few more bowls.” he said as he walked back into the kitchen.

 

Lance threw his jacket onto the couch, crawled into the pillowfort and looked around. The floor was covered in thick, fluffy comforters. There were pillows and extra blankets in every colour and pattern. Apparently, the sheets he could saw on the outside were there to cover whatever Hunk did to create this fort, as the overhead sheets were different patterns, and colours. Hunk had hooked up fairy lights inside the fort, giving the inside just enough light to see by, but not enough to distract from the movie. To the side was a table covered in the best snack foods. There were chips, pretzels, cookies, Lance even found a plate of garlic knots, which he immediately snatched up. He grabbed one of the pillows (his favourite at Hunks, a light blue one with cartoon sharks on it), and settled into the middle of the fort.

 

As he munched on a garlic knot, he picked up the remote and set it to play the movie. As he did that, there was a knocking from the front door. “I’ll get it!” he called to Hunk as he got out of the pillowfort.

 

He opened the door to a slightly disheveled and very out of breath Pidge. “D’you run here?” he asked through a mouthful of garlic knot.

 

“Elevator… got stuck… at… floor 5.”  She gasped out. “Already… late.”

 

“Good on you getting your monthly exercise.” He held up his fist, only slightly mockingly. Pidge rolled her eyes but conceded, and she tapped her knuckles against his.

 

A small shock went through Lance, causing him to drop the piece of garlic knot had in his hand. “Hey!” he said (no it was not a yelp), shaking out his hand.

 

“Oh shit, sorry. I guess I still have some residual magic on me.” She looked down the hallway and began walking towards a metal panel in the wall.  She touched it, causing the hall lights to flicker slightly. “There.” Pidge walked back towards him and pushed into Hunk’s apartment.

 

“Hunk! I’m here!” she yelled, beginning to walk towards the room.

 

 **“** Take off your shoes Pidge!” was yelled back, causing Pidge to freeze.

 

“Sorry!”

 

Lance went back to snuggle into his spot in the fort as Pidge kicked her shoes off. By the sound of it, she threw her jacket onto the couch with his. She then crawled into the pillowfort as well and grabbed the bowl of pretzels, settling on his right. She sat down cross-legged and wrapped herself in one of the blankets.

 

At this point, Hunk also crawled into the fort. He set two more bowls on the table and settled down beside it.

 

“So, do you want to about why we’re having an emergency movie night?”

 

“No…”

 

Hunk looked at him thoughtfully. “Okay, play the movie.”

 

-

 

They ended up pausing the movie sixteen times for Lance to talk about what was going on. He wasn’t even planning on doing it, but he kept seeing Hunk look at him, and Pidge was participating in the cuddle pile, which she usually doesn’t do, and it just started spilling out of his mouth.

 

“... I don’t know what to do. Like, I’ve had to deal with cases like this before, but something just feels so wrong and off about this one. And the guy died recently, like really recently I’m pretty sure, and he got stabbed in some back alley somewhere. If I go out and try to help him I might also end up on the wrong side of a knife!” Lance leaned farther into Hunk’s, shoulder. He ran his fingers through Pidge’s hair. She had her head in his lap. The texture was calming.

 

“Are you going to keep helping the ghost?” Pidge asked, but she didn’t move her head.

 

“Well what else am I supposed to do?”

 

“It’s not your problem to have to deal with, Lance.”

 

“He used to be a living person, Pidge.” Lance sighed and sat up right, rubbing his face with both hands. “Look, this isn’t why I wanted to have a movie night. Can we just go back to watching Thor, please?”

 

Pidge sat up too and she and Hunk stared at eachother. They seemed to be having a silent conversation.

 

“Hello? Guys?” Lance waved his hand in between their faces.

 

“Yeah, okay. But don’t think this discussion is over.” Hunk picked up the remote and pressed play.

 

Lance snuggled farther into his blankets.

 

* * *

 

 

 

They didn’t talk about it for the rest of the night.

 

 

 

* * *

 

“Lance… Hey, Lance can you hear me?”

 

Lance groaned and groggily blinked open his eyes. Above him, the fairy lights glowed soflty against the pattern of the blanket above his head. There was a crick in his neck and he could hear the low rumble of Hunk’s almost snore and slight whistling of Pidge’s breathing.

 

They must have fallen asleep while watching the movie. He should probably-

 

_Wait._

 

He could still hear the even breathing of Hunk and Pidge.

 

_So who had woken him up?_

 

Was it just a dream? It probably was. Which means it’d be fine if he just went back to slee-

 

“Lance.”

 

Nope it’s real.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a tumblr for this. It's @good-vibes-mostly and there I'll be posting probably some shorter pieces and whatnot. (I have a thing against posting anything under 1000 words here sor some reason.) If y'all wanna ask me questions and don't wanna go through ao3 you can do it over tumblr. (Btw, I usually post these over mobile, so no links, sorry)


	4. Backalleys and the Garbage They Contain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro keeps disappearing. Lance does more research on Shiro's past and tries to make nice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry about how long this took. December has nnot been kind to me, and I've had very little time. Please except this longer chaapter as a apology?

Lance turned his head to the side and blinked. Lit by the dim glow of the fairy lights, he could see two legs standing beside the pillowfort.  

 

The two legs were clad in black and- are those shoes? Oh Hunk was gonna kill whoever it was standing in the living room right now. No one wore shoes inside unless something broke on the floor.

 

“Lance, are you awake?”

 

There was that voice again. He looked to the side. Neither Pidge nor Hunk even twitched in their sleep, and they were both pretty light sleepers.

 

“Lance?”

 

He blinked a few more times. He knew that voice.

 

Lance slowly picked himself up and pulled away from the pillowfort, careful not to wake either of the others up. Then he stood up, facing the ghostly form of Shiro.

 

He squinted up at Shiro. In the moonlight, Shiro could almost be a real, alive person.

 

“It’s the middle of the night. Why are you waking me up?” Lance could feel his hair tickling his forehead. It must have curled again in his sleep.

 

Shiro looked out the window, surprised. He stared at the moon as if he forgot it existed.

 

“It’s midnight. Sorry, I didn’t realize. Guess I’m still not used to being dead. I don’t really need sleep.” Shiro gave a slight laugh. It was almost bitter.

 

“Well I do. Can you just go back to where ever you were before? I promise I’ll still help you in the morning, but I’m tired.”

 

“Yeah, of course. Sorry, I just- nevermind.”

 

Then Shiro vanished, and Lance flopped back down into the fort and passed out.

 

* * *

 

When Lance had woken up, he’d expected to see Shiro right away. He was nowhere to be found.

 

Lance continued on as normal, thinking,  _ he’ll probably show up in a little bit, he’s probably just leaving me alone for awhile. _

 

So Lance waited.

 

He waited through breakfast at Hunk’s, completely detached from whatever conversation was happening in front of him.

 

He waited through his walk back to his own apartment, nearly getting hit by 3 different cars on 3 different occasions.

 

He waited until he was back in his apartment before he realized that maybe this was just an off day, and that Shiro would probably show up later, or even tomorrow, and things would be fine.

 

Lance sighed at himself. He really worried too much sometimes. Whatever, he should get back to researching for Shiro.

 

-

 

This time, he went about things a little differently. Instead of using his computer and the internet, he thought he’d go a bit more old school.

 

Lance was friends with a lot of people. Like a lot, a lot of people. Like, he knew a shit ton of people. A shit ton of people from all different ages, statuses, and districts throughout the city.

 

He picked up the phone, sat at his table, opened his contacts, and started to call people.

 

Gossips. Eavesdroppers. Flies-on-the-wall. Lance called everyone he knew and asked them if they had ever encountered a ‘Shiro’. It couldn’t have been that common of a name, could it?

 

-

 

Turns out, it was a lot more common than he’d thought it would be. At least 12 people knew a ‘Shiro’, but when Lance asked for a description, none of them matched the look of his new friend.

 

He had one more contact in the city. Taking a deep breath, Lance hit ‘call’.

 

“...Hello?”

 

“Hey Ulaz, it’s Lance.”

 

“What was it that you needed?” it wasn't said in a rude way, just in a way that made it very clear Ulaz was in a working mood.

 

“What? Can’t I just call up my friend and talk to him for fun?” There was no answer.

 

“Alright fine. I’m looking for information on someone. Goes by the name Shiro?”

 

“Do you mean Takashi Shirogane?” Ulaz sounded much more interested now.

 

“I don’t know, only got the one name. Is he tall and real buff? With a jaw sharp enough to cut someone, a white floof of hair, and literally the sharpest winged liner I’ve ever seen?”

 

“To put it crudely, yes, that’s him. I haven’t heard from him in a few months. Why?”

 

Lance felt disappointment sink him heart a little. “Ah… a friend of mine is looking for him. Did he tell you what he was doing by any chance?”

 

“No. Shiro was very secretive. The only person I could imagine him telling would be his brother, but from what I understand, he’s even more private than Shiro.”

 

Lance’s heart plummeted all the way down. Another day of searching and nothing. This was no going well.

 

“Well, thanks anyway Ulaz. You’re the biggest lead I have in this, so text me if you learn anything, yeah?”

 

“Of course. Goodbye Lance.”

 

_ Click! _

 

Lance thumped his head on the table and groaned. 

 

* * *

 

It wasn’t until around 6 o’clock that Shiro showed up to find Lance still face down on the table. He was asleep, face down on the table, with a puddle of drool coming out of his open mouth. 

 

“Lance.”

 

“Mmhf…”

 

“Lance.”

 

He turned his head over, planting his cheek directly in the puddle of drool.

 

Shiro squinted. He couldn’t touch Lance, and saying his name didn’t seem to work, so what else? He looked at his hand.

 

He could probably change the temperature if he tried…

 

“AHGGHHHGGAHHH!”

 

Lance jumped up from the table, rubbing his hand against the nape of his neck. He looked around the room for his assailant.

 

“What the fuck! Who the- Shiro? Where have you been? Why are you laughing?” Lance lowered his hand. Shiro was hunched over, his body shaking with laughter.

 

“Sorry, sorry,” Shiro stood up straight, a smile still on his face. “You said to come back later.”

 

“I meant in the morning, when I wasn’t sleeping. It’s-” he turned to look at the time on his stove, “ 6:13. That’s like, 15-16 hours. Where have you been?”

 

“Oh.” Shiro looked at the clock. He looked out the window to where he could see the sun low in the sky, painting the horizon in  pinks and oranges and golds. He furrowed his eyebrows. Had he really been gone for that long?

 

“Time is.. difficult. Where I go, things don’t really change.”

 

“Yeah, I guess the Abyss can be like that.”

 

Shiro turned back to look at Lance. “The Abyss?”

 

Lance had retrieved a rag from somewhere and was cleaning up his drool. He made a dismissive gesture with his free hand. “You know, the Abyss, the Veil, the Astral Plane, Limbo, Purgatory, the eternal waiting room of death. That place. It’s all the same place.”

 

Lance threw the rag into his sink. “Did you know a man named Ulaz?”

 

_ Ulaz… _

 

Did he know a man named Ulaz? It sounded familiar, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Where did he know that name from?

 

Suddenly his head was starting to hurt and his eyes couldn’t focus on anything. Was the room spinning? What was happening? And who was Ulaz?

 

Shiro could hear a voice calling out to him. It was Lance.

 

“-alm down. You can’t try to think too much about your past.  If it doesn’t come to you let it be. Focus on my voice, just think of now.”

 

Lance’s voice. He sounded calm. Shiro took a deep breath that he didn’t need.

 

“There. Better now?” He nodded. 

 

“Cool. Now let’s go find the alley you died in.”

 

-

 

It was only around mid fall, so the sun was still above the horizon when Lance stepped outside. The sky was cast in darker reds and even some purples, but it was still plenty light outside.

 

It was actually great timing. It was easier to sense ghost-things at twilight. Full moons were better, New moons, were better than that, and solar eclipses were best. Especially for Lance.

 

Considering the Full and New moons were a few weeks off and there was a solar eclipse during the summer, twilight was the best option.

 

“What are we doing?” Shiro was beside him. He was attempting to avoid knocking into people, but sometimes someone would accidentally pass through part of him. Lance could see the people in his peripheral; they always looked confused when it happened. He saw one lady rub her arm with a handkerchief, looking bewildered as the cloth stayed dry. Lance could relate, passing through ghosts always felt like dipping yourself into water.

 

Lance turned left, heading into the nearest alley that wasn’t full of people. He moved towards the end of the the alley, away from any windows or doors.

 

“We’re gonna go around the city, dipping into alleys to see if any trigger any new memories.” Lance leaned against the wall, hiding himself in the shadows of the building. He could see people walking down the street. He hoped no one could see him.

 

“Isn’t that a waste of time? There’s got to be hundreds of alleys in this district alone.”

 

“Well I don’t have any other ideas. I can’t find you anywhere online, and none of my contacts know where you are, at least this is something.” Lance rubbed his eyes. God, he was tired.

 

“Alright Lance, lead the way.”

 

-

 

The next two hours were spent walking down every dirty, damp, and decrepit alley they came across.

 

Of course, they went down the nice ones too, - and there were plenty of those - but Lance could really only remember the gross ones. How could he not? With their weird smells and even weirder content.

 

But now the sun was down, and it was time to start heading back. Lance decided to take the long route. No point in  **not** going through all the alleys they could.

 

Half way back to Lance’s apartment, Lance stepped on a fresh piece of gum. 

 

“Aww, gross,” Lance lifted up his right foot, the green gum stretched between  the bottom of his shoe and the ground. “This is gonna stick to everything. Shiro, give me a sec, I gotta get this off.” Lance rubbed the sole of his shoe against the ground, trying to pull off the gum. Most of it smeared off, but it definitely would have to be picked off carefully later.

 

“All right, I got most of it off,” he looked up.Shiro was standing in the middle of the alley, staring at something. “..Shiro?”

 

He didn’t turn. Lance walked up to him. “What are you looking at?”

 

When Shiro didn’t respond, Lance turned to his eyes to the ground in front of him. “Oh.”

 

On the ground was a reddish-brown stain on the ground. It was a few weeks old, but it was very obviously blood. Not only that, but there was something very wrong with the atmosphere here. Even after twilight, Lance could sense something here. A dark cloud, almost evil feeling, hung in the air. A stolen life, but more malicious than death. What the fuck happened here?

 

“Shiro?”

 

Lance turned to the ghost in question.he wasn’t moving. 

 

“Shiro, are you okay?” The ghost opened his mouth to answer, but something went wrong. Shiro flashed as if he was glitching, and suddenly, he was gone. 

 

“Shiro?! Where did you-?”

 

Lance’s mouth snapped shut. Someone had appeared at the end of the alley. They had probably heard everything he was yelling. He pressed himself to the wall behind a dumpster. Hopefully they would just pass by and wouldn’t see him.

 

The figure stopped in front of the blood stain. Of course Lance would be that unlucky. He lost the ghost he was helping for the second time, and now he’d have to wait behind a dumpster in a dingy alley at 8 o’clock at night. 

 

Now that they were closer, he could see that a pair of large white headphones on their head. Okay, good, they hadn’t heard him then. They seemed to be dressed in all black, but aside from that, he couldn’t tell much.

 

The figure crouched down by the stain, coming into the light of one of the nearby buildings. Lance could now see black sweatpants, a black hoodie, black boots, and black hair ending at about the shoulders. Wait a second…

 

It was that guy!

 

“Hey!” 

 

The man startled, whipping his head back and forth as he stood up. His eyes locked on Lance, who was coming out from behind the dumpster, and he took off his headphones.

 

“Who are you?”

 

That surprises Lance. They had literally just met yesterday. No way was he that forgettable. 

 

“Who am I? Uh, the name’s Lance? We just met yesterday?”

 

The guy tilted his head and blinked. It was so not cute. “Really? Did you work at the grocery store?”

 

“ No, we met on the street last night. You ran into me earlier that day.” Lance could tell his face was making a ridiculous expression, but he couldn’t help it. 

 

“Oh wait, I remember you. You yelled at me for not apologizing to you.”

 

“Yeah, well, you also didn’t even tell me your name. You ran away before saying anything.”

 

A blush erupted on the others face. He looked away from Lance. “...I’m Keith.”

 

“Hi Keith. Why did you run away from me yesterday?”

 

Keith looked back at him. “Why were you hiding behind dumpster in a creepy alley?”

 

He had a good point. “...We’ll agree to disagree. Anyway, how are you?”

 

“What? Why are you asking me that?” Keith was fully facing him now. He wasn’t wearing as much jewelry as he was before, not that Lance could see, just a simple pendant necklace and a few rings.

 

Lance shrugged, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “Making friends. We’re both out here in a creep, dirty alley at night, might as well, right?”

 

Keith considered him. “I’m doing… fine.” the answer was stilited, like Keith wasn’t too sure if the answer. Lance waited for him to ask it back. He didn’t.

 

“Well I’m doing great, thanks for asking,” Lance check the time. “Well I actually need to get going now. Bye Keith, have fun with your alley.” He began to walk backwards towards his apartment, waving at Keith.

 

Keith waved back, still looking a bit confused.

 

* * *

 

**Me: And he was so RUDE**

 

**Me: He didn’t even remember what my name was, and I KNOW he heard me**

 

***Hacker voice*: Lance**

 

***Hacker voice*: Calm down**

 

***Hacker voice*: It’s not that big of a deal**

 

**The Bae: Yeah Lance, he probably just forgot, it’s not like you talked for all that long yesterday**

 

**The Bae: He was obviously in a big rush**

 

**Me: I can’t believe you traitirs**

 

**Me: Traitors***

 

**Me: My own friends have turned against me.**

 

***Hacker voice*: Whatever Lance**

 

* * *

 

When he got back to his apartment, he was surprised to find Shiro there.

 

“Hey, are you okay? You kind of disappeared on me.”

 

Shiro winced. “Yeah, I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened back there.”

 

“It’s okay. I didn’t expect you to react that badly. I’m sorry. But hey, we found the alley you died in, so that’s a plus!”

 

Shiro snorted. “So, did any memories come back when we went there?”

 

He nodded. “Before I disappeared, I remember seeing the person I was yelling at. It was a woman, with a purple cloak and purple skin and long, white hair. She had these red lines coming down the side if her face. But I don’t know who that was.”

 

“Well it’s better than nothing. Any chance you’d be willing to go back to that alley? Based on the look if the blood stain, you can’t have been dead for more than a couple of months, so anything you remember should still be relevant.”

 

Shiro shook his head. “I don’t know why, but I feel like I can’t go back there.” 

 

Lance sighed. “I thought so. Well at least we know where you died. I should be able to figure out something by myself. I’ll go again tomorrow, but for now, I’m going to bed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can I just mention that the title is a joke because of how much dialogue I put between Lance and Keith in that alley? It was a s t r u g g l e. I am so bad at dialogue, someone help


	5. Work is Hard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance is struggling to help Shiro out, but with other people, not so much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was kind of a weird chapter for me. I don't really like it as a whole, but oh well. Enjoy!

When Lance woke up, a thought occurred to him. 

 

He had spent so long calling up people, but when he had finally found something, he did nothing with the information. Well, he did try to bring it up with Shiro, but that kind of almost sent him into a panic attack, if ghost can even have those.

 

But still. He had done nothing. Lance slapped his forehead, chastising himself for being an idiot. 

 

Lance pulled up his laptop and searched ‘Takashi Shirogane’. 

 

Nothing.

 

He tried ‘Shirogane Takashi’.

 

Still nothing.

 

He searched a family tree of people with the family name of ‘Shirogane’ and searched for a Takashi. 

 

Nothing again.

 

He tried at least four different ways to search for Shiro’s name, but nothing relevant came up. 

 

Well, time to keep searching.

 

* * *

Lance visited the alley again after his lecture. In the daylight he could see that the stain was definitely blood. The main splotch seemed to be made of three different spills that all came together.  Lance could see that droplets had been flung out from the central part and for some reason there were streaks of black and silver around the stain.

 

Lance figured that this was a bit more complicated than a simple stabbing. 

 

He could feel the same dark cloud around the stain, although the sun seemed to keep some of the evil aura at bay. He grimaced, not liking the idea, but he figured he'd probably have to visit again at night. The aura felt  distinctly magical, which was worrying.

 

-

 

He spent a few more minutes staring at the ground before he decided that he’d got enough information for today, hopefully just enough to trigger a memory from Shiro without causing him to glitch out of existence.

 

-

 

He stepped into his apartment,  kicking off his shoes. “Hey Shiro, you around?”

 

“Yeah, I’m here.”

 

Lance walked into the living room, plopping down on his couch beside Shiro  who was attempting to read a magazine. He had it on the coffee table, flipped open to the fourth page. Lance took a sip of his smoothie as he watched Shiro struggle to turn the page. He wondered how long he must have been at this.

 

Finally, Shiro seemed to give up, letting the magazine page fall from his fingers. 

 

“So, where have you been all day?”

 

“I went to class, got a smoothie,” he held up the half empty cup in his hand. He continued in a much quieter voice. “I uh, went back to the alley.”

 

He waited. Shiro wasn’t glitching out,  so he figured it was okay to continue.

 

“There was magic there Shiro. Along with some weird black and silver marks on the ground. I need time to gather supplies, but I’m planning to go back there and perform a spell of revealing.”

 

Shiro was facing him now. “I think your story’s a bit more complicated than you just getting stabbed dude.”

 

Shiro snorted and looked away. “Yeah, I figured.”

 

“Well, uh, there is good news,” Lance fiddled with the rim on the cup’s plastic covering, “Tracking magic is a lot easier than tracking, like death patterns. Oh, and I also figured out your name. A friend”  _ Ulaz, which I can’t say or you’ll freak out  _ “of mine knew you from before. He said you’re Takashi Shirogane.”

 

At the name, Shiro nodded. “Yeah, that’s me,”

 

“Too bad it doesn’t help though. I can't find mention of you anywhere.” Lance could tell he had started pouting, but he didn’t care.

 

“Well it's better than nothing.”

 

* * *

 

Lance called up his cousin, Allura, who was a full time witch, to help him get some of the ingredients. Well, they weren’t  _ really  _ cousins, they shared a great grandfather afterall, but it was close enough that it didn’t matter.

 

While he hadn’t lied to Shiro about magic tracking being easier than death patterns, it wasn't necessarily easy. Lance didn’t even know what ingredients he would even need, or how the ritual would have to be performed. He just knew it existed.

 

“Hello?”

 

“Hey ‘Llura!”

 

“Oh Lance, it’s great to hear from you again. You  _ said _ you’d call more often!” she had an accusatory tone in her voice.

 

“Sorry…”

 

A sigh. “It’s fine Lance. Anyway, when’s the next time I can visit? We haven’t hung out in ages.”

 

“ I uh, actually didn’t call for fun Allura.” He heard another sigh and winced. He’d have to find a way to make up for being a dick to her. “One of the ghosts I’m helping died by a witch, and I need a magic tracking spell.”

 

There was a pause.

 

“A magic tracking spell?”

 

“Yeah, I know it exists, don't tell me it doesn't, but I need the things and the recipe and stuff. I could try tracking the death patterns, but this seems more straight forward.”

 

Allura made a sound of agreement before she said “Well, it looks like I get my wish then.”

 

“What?” Not that he didn’t love his cousin, but what?

 

“Lance, that spell is difficult for a full witch to perform. And there are a lot of things you need to understand about it. So, after I’ve collected the ingredients, I’ll be coming to stay with you!” She finished with a flourish, and Lance could hear shuffling sounds across the line.

 

“Okay, I’ll be happy to have you over,” 

 

“Depending on my suppliers, it’ll take anywhere from two weeks to two months for me to collect these things.”

 

“Really?” Lance was shocked. It usually only took a few days for Allura to resupply him.

 

“Yes and- oh,” Allura was speaking some more, but it was muffled, like she was covering her phone. “I have a customer right now, I’ll talk to you later.”

 

“Yeah okay, bye,”  _ click _ .

 

* * *

 

Lance was at his job. He had never called that girl back. When she came in to get her morning coffee, she saw he was there and left the shop completely.

 

He was really bored. He worked at a small, independent coffee place. An almost hipster-like joint that was just cool enough that instagram seemed to love the place.

 

He had to admit, is was pretty cozy here, but they rarely got new customers for some reason, and the regulars tended to just buy one thin and then spend the next 3 hours lounging in one of their chairs.

 

He had nothing to do, scrolling through his phone as he leaned against the counter. It was an hour into his shift and he had only served one customer.

 

He fiddled with his bracelet. It was the one that Allura had made for him. It was a braided bracelet made of blue string. But, because Allura was a witch, she had imbues it with different stones and symbols and magic to help him. It had six stones woven into it: Agate and amber for protection, jade for knowledge, lapis lazuli and moonstone for clairvoyance, and quartz for balance. She’d also carves symbols into some of the stones, like a pentagram and ankh for further protection, and the alchemical symbol for water.

 

He ran his thumb over the bracelet, thinking about nothing in particular, staring out into space.

 

‘Space’ turned out to be the front window of the shop, as when he blinked, he was looking out into the street.

 

Outside he could see a two young women,, one following the other, who were heading towards the front door. Usually, that wouldn’t be very noteworthy, but the one following was speaking and seemed to be on the verge of tears, but the other wasn’t paying any attention. Then he noticed how they were dressed. The leading one was bundled up for the weather, albeit a bit extremely. The other was dressed in a t-shirt and shorts.

 

As they stepped into the cafe, Lance noticed something else. The woman in shorts was a ghost.

 

The living of the two ordered a coffee, but it was a little hard to concentrate on, given the fact that the ghost was crying and pleading for the other to look at her.

 

It hurt to listen to, and it was so difficult for Lance to not look over the living woman’s shoulder as he took her order.

 

He gave her the coffee and she went to sit down, leaving the ghost standing at the counter, sobbing.

 

Lance bit the inside of his cheek. He couldn’t  _ not _ help her.

 

He pulled out his phone, pretending to make a call. “Hey.”

 

The ghost turned at his voice, looking him in the eye. She seemed surprised, but when she noticed the phone in his hand she started turning away. 

 

“Y’know, I like the roses on your shorts,” he spoke quickly, before the ghost turned away completely.

 

She looked back at him. “You can see me?”

 

“Yeah. But uh, give me a sec, it’d be easier to talk to you if I went into the backroom. I’m at work right now.” He motioned for her to follow him.

 

In the backroom, he put his phone away. “Look-”

 

“I already know I’m dead.”

 

“Oh,”

 

“I remember dying. I was in a car crash because I was angry at my girlfriend and wasn’t paying attention.”

 

“Was that her?” His voice was quiet.

 

She nodded back. “I just want to tell her that I love her,” she let out a sob and clapped a hand over her mouth, cutting herself off. “I didn’t tell her because I was stupid and we got into that stupid fight and the last thing I said to her was that I hated her and- and-” she was hiccuping now, tears flowing freely down her face. 

 

“I just want her to know that I loved her.”

 

Lance watched as the ghost broke down into tears. He wanted to hug her, comfort her somehow, but he knew he couldn’t touch her.

 

“I can help you.” She looked up at that. “I can tell her if you want, or I can help you write a note.”

 

“Could you?”

 

He nodded, earning him a watery smile from the ghost.

 

-

 

It didn’t take too long to write the note. While ghosts couldn’t properly touch anyone or really anything, something about Lance let them write using his hand.

 

Possibly it was a minor bit of possession, but Lance was fine with it if it’d help someone.

 

The ghost, Tonya, wanted him to ask her girlfriend, Anya, into the backroom to talk, and then give her the letter and talk to her.

 

And while he really wanted to help Tonya, he really hated sounding like a creep. But of course, when people die they seem to forget about social norms and such.(One ghost had even asked him to steal something from their old house and dig up their grave, which is not something that he was up for)

 

But oh well. Here it goes.

 

“Hello miss? Would you do me a favour and come with me please?” Lance internally cringed at his words, but Tonya was giving him a thumbs up.

 

Surprisingly, Anya didn’t object to following him. She listened to his explanation, and didn’t even call him crazy for saying the thing about ghosts.

 

She took the note and read it, tears welling in her eyes.

 

“She wanted to tell you that she was sorry, that she never meant to hurt you and that she wished she’d never stormed out.” 

 

“Is she here right now?” Anya asked. Her voice was soft, and a bit raspy.

 

Lance looked towards Tonya for confirmation and nodded.

 

“Can you tell-”

 

“She can hear you, if you want to tell her yourself.”

 

Anya nodded, and Lance directed her to the chair Tonya was sitting in. Tonya reached out to caress her face, causing Anya to shiver slightly. 

 

“I’ll just be out here. Call if you need something.” 

 

He stepped out of the backroom, giving the girls sometime before he was called back. They both had tears in their eyes, but they were smiling. 

 

“Thank you,” Tonya said. She closed her eyes one last time, pressing a kiss to Anya’s lips and whispered “I love you.”

 

Then she was gone. Fading away with a smile on her lips.

 

Anya seemed to know it was over. More tears spilled down her face but the smile never left. She stood up and hugged Lance tight around the middle, pressing her face into his chest and whispering thank you to  him. He hugged her back.

 

-

 

Anya left soon after that, and Lance went back to his job. 

 

He smiled to himself. Helping ghosts was usually praise-less work. It didn’t make him any money, it was time consuming, mentally and emotionally draining and usually got him called crazy.

 

But to help people, to make their lives better, to bring them closure? It was worth it in the end.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is both me saying my work is hard(which is mostly homework and this), and also Lance's work is hard, because helping ghosts IS hard. 
> 
> Oh, and i couldn't find a way to mention this in the story, but the blue of the bracelet is supposed to be for warding off evil spirits!(even though its supposed to be for candles but shhhhh)
> 
> -Kit


	6. New friend....ish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance takes the morning shift. Then he goes to the park. Then he goes home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ha ha .... ha.

Lance had told Shiro what Allura had said. While Shiro was happy about it, Lance wasn’t so enthusiastic.

 

Not that he wasn’t happy about the fact that they had a plan and Shiro would get to move on in life(or death, rather), but he was concerned about what that meant.

 

He’d never had to help a ghost for as long as he would potentially be helping Shiro. Usually, it’d only take a few days to a week to help them out, the longest before had been maybe a week and a half.

 

The problem was that the longer that he had ghosts around, the worse they became.

 

He didn’t know why, but he thought that maybe the helplessness of not being able to do anything, and having to rely on another person to help them was slowly driving them crazy. He’d seen it before, ghosts that were around for hundreds of years by themselves couldn’t even express coherent thought. They would just be reduced to whatever feeling was strongest.

 

When ghosts were by themselves, it would take _years._ Like, hundreds of them. But when they knew him, it could be a matter of days before they started flipping off the handle.

 

He didn’t want that to happen to his new friend. It would just kinda suck. For everyone.

 

Lance also didn’t want to have to ignore any ghosts that he came across. Sure, he could help ghosts like Tonya, but if he ran into a ghost that required more than a few hours of his help, things would start getting weird. Last time he tried to take on two ghosts at once, he crashed and slept for three days straight. When he woke up, his apartment was a mess. He ended up having to call the one other person in the area he knew that could talk to ghosts to take one of them. It was not a fun time.

 

But there wasn’t really much to do if Shiro didn’t remember anything, and Lance didn’t really know anything else to try. He was scared to try and bring up anything from his past to Shiro because he might panic and disappear again. So they just had to wait and hope for the best.

 

Which also meant that Lance had to ignore basically every ghost that he ran across, unless they had a really obvious solution.

 

There had been some close calls, but thankfully Lance was used to ghosts enough to notice the small tells that set them apart from alive people. Dulled or desaturated colours, inappropriate clothing for the weather, a lack of interaction with the surrounding environment, etc, etc.

 

Unfortunately, as much as he might complain about it, talking to and helping ghosts was what usually made his life exciting. Now his life was kind of… boring.

 

Well, mostly.

 

Lance usually worked at the coffeeshop weekdays. He usually worked late morning/early afternoon. So why, oh why, was he at the coffee shop at 5am on a Sunday morning?

 

Oh right. Lacy, the girl who usually worked Sunday mornings, had somehow figured out that Lance had brought Anya into the back room and left the counter unattended. Not only was that against the rules, but Lacy had threatened to tell the one manager that happened to not like Lance.

 

So that's why Lance was working before the sun even rose completely. He was tired, and grumpy, and honestly couldn’t bother with the enthusiasm he usually had.

 

Thankfully, none of the customers seemed to mind. They all looked about as tired as he felt.

 

He was contemplating making himself a coffee when the door chimed.

 

Yay, another person to serve.

 

They stepped closer to the counter and looked up at the menu. The customer was dressed in all black, except for the white medical mask they were wearing over the lower half of their face.

 

Wait a second-

 

“Keith?”

 

The person -Keith- jumped and stared at him, and suddenly recognition lit his eyes.

 

“Lance?”

 

“Yeah, what are you doing here?”

 

“I’m here to get a drink. This is a coffee shop.” Keith furrowed his brows slightly.

 

Lance blushed. “I- you- Whatever.” Keith raised an eyebrow at him.

 

“I just meant I never see you here, is this like your first time coming here or something?”

 

“I always come here. Usually Lacy’s the one that serves me.”

 

Lance blinked at him. He squinted at Keith until it finally kicked in that it was in fact the early morning shift on Sunday, and not his normal work hours. Man, he really needed a coffee, his brain was not working.

 

“She blackmailed me into taking her shift. Usually I work weekdays.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Yeah,” Lance rubbed at his face. They stood there in silence for a bit before Lance spoke again. “So, what’d you want?”

 

Silence. “Coffee?”

 

Keith scrunched up his nose. Even though Lance could only see the top half of his face, it was still pretty cute.

 

“No, I hate coffee. I’ll get a hot chocolate with soy milk instead of regular milk.”

 

Lance blinked at him. “You don’t like coffee? You came to a coffee shop, and you don’t like coffee?” Okay, nevermind. God, this keeps happening with Keith, he’ll think something’s good about Keith and then Keith has to go and ruin it.

 

“It’s disgusting. I’d rather have hot chocolate.”

 

Lance grimaced, but put in the order.

 

Before Lance can ask, Keith hands him money. It’s exact change.

 

Despite what people might think, Lance didn’t really like hot chocolate. At least not the type that they have to make at his job. They put like, 5 tablespoons of sugar (or sugar substitute) in a small hot chocolate. _That_ was gross.

 

Oh well.

 

-

 

“Keith!”

 

The boy in question walked up to the counter and grabbed his drink.

 

He was wearing fingerless gloves. Lance’s eyes tracked his hand as it lowered his face mask and brought the cup up to his face, which is the reason why Lance noticed how Keith's hand twitched and his eyes flashed gold.

 

“Thanks”

 

“No problem, I’ll see you around, Keith,” Lance replied. He decided not to ask about it, especially because more people were coming into the shop.

 

Keith turned and waved at him as he walked out, leaving Lance to his thoughts and 5 new customers.

 

* * *

 

When he had said ‘I’ll see you around’, it had just been a polite comment. He didn’t mean it literally. Seriously, this was getting kind of excessive.

 

Since Sunday at the coffee shop, Lance ran into Keith 9 more times, and it was only Wednesday. One of those times had even been later on that Sunday.

 

Every time they met would bring something new. For some reason, Keith seemed to go between two different  moods. Either he was really cool and chill, or he was the most annoying person ever.

 

While he enjoyed seeing and interacting with Keith despite their differences, it was almost as if a supernatural force was bringing them together.

 

Although, Lance had gone back to the alley a few times. He went to take pictures, grab samples and whatnot, and every one of those time Keith had shown up at one point or another, so maybe it wasn’t that random.

 

Oh well, it didn’t matter.

 

What did matter was that Keith looked to be about to get into a bar fight, sans bar.

 

They were in a park. Lance had come out here to try and get some studying in and possibly do some Shiro-related research when he’d spotted them.

 

It was a group of four figures. There was Keith, dressed in a dark purple cloak, and three others that looked completely normal, albeit significantly taller than Keith. Well they would look normal, if it wasn’t for the runes that snaked up their arms.

 

Keith was yelling. “Where is he! I know you assholes know!”

 

The figure in the middle responded by jabbing Keith in the chest with a finger. “We told you, little man, we don’t know where your _brother_ is. And if we did, no way in hell are we telling _you_.”

 

Lance could feel the magic crackling in the air around them. He could also see the runes starting to glow along the arms of the three figures, as well as the glowing of Keith’s eyes.

 

He had to stop it, preferably before Keith got beaten to a pulp.

 

“Hey Keith! Funny seeing you here!” he yelled. As soon as they heard him, the glowing died down. If Lance hadn’t known any better, he would have assumed they weren’t glowing at all. He made his way over to the group.

 

“Hi Keith,” he threw an arm over Keith’s shoulder, smiling at the glare being sent his way, “who’re your friends?”

 

-

 

A sharp elbow jabbed its way into his ribcage, making him curl in on himself.

 

“What was that?!”

 

“Ow. You know, a thank you would be nice.”

 

Keith ignored him, gesturing towards the backs of the three figures as they walked away. “You come out of nowhere and interrupt my meeting. How am I supposed to talk to them if they _aren’t here_?”

 

“Talking? They looked ready to beat you to a pulp!” Lance lowered Keith’s arm, causing him to pull it back towards himself.

 

“I could have handled myself.” Keith started walking away, but Lance followed him.

 

“Uh yeah, sure. They were all at least solid foot taller than you, and there were _three of them_. They would have killed you.”

 

Keith stopped and sighed, but Lance could tell he knew Lance was right.

 

“Come on,” Lance said, “I was just about to go get lunch, why don’t you join me?”

 

_So much for studying_.

 

-

 

They walked to a family owned diner, because you know, support local businesses. And, said family may or may not have been Hunk’s.

 

The whole walk there, Keith kept trying to convince him that they shouldn’t go.

 

“I’m not hungry”

 

“I think your stomach growling says otherwise.”

 

“I don’t have any money to pay for lunch.”

 

“That’s fine, I can pay today and you can pay me back later if you want. Money’s not an issue.”

 

“I’m allergic to a lot of things, they probably won’t have-”

 

“The people there are really accommodating, you’ll be fine.”

 

“You don’t even know me.”

 

“All the more reason to get to know you.”

 

“What if I don’t want to eat with you?”

 

That got Lance to pause. What if Keith didn’t want to eat with him? But then again…

 

“I’m not holding you here, if you wanted to leave, you would have.” He gestured around himself. “No one’s stopping you.”

 

An embarrassed blush grew in Keith’s face. Lance grinned at him as he walked passed, muttering “let’s just go to the stupid restaurant.”

 

Again, Lance was reminded of how cute Keith was.

 

A blush formed on his own cheeks. Woah, woah, woah, was he actually getting feelings? No, he was allowed to think people were cute. Tons of strangers were cute. No feelings, it was fine.

 

But Lance didn’t have to invite Keith to eat. Or insist on why Keith should come. Oh shit he was starting to have-

 

“Lance? Uh, where is it?”

 

Right. Eating. They were supposed to do that. No time for feelings, he could do that later.

 

* * *

 

Lance brought them into the restaurant, waving to the cashier, and guiding Keith to a booth.

 

One of the waitstaff brought them menus before they were left alone in the relative privacy of a busy-ish diner.

 

Lance watched as Keith picked up the menu and started looking through it. He’d been there enough times that he already knew what he wanted. “So Keith, tell me about yourself.”

 

“What?” Keith put down his menu. “You don't want to know about what happened in the park?”

 

“No I do, but I didn't think you'd be comfortable talking about it. So unless you want to talk about it-”

 

A waitress interrupted him, bringing them glasses of water and asking if they wanted to order any drinks. They both said no, saying the water was fine and she went away.

 

Lance looked at Keith questioningly, but he shook his head “What was the question again?”

 

“Tell me about yourself. How old are you, are you going to school, what do you like to do for fun, you know, things like that.”  Lance said propped his chin up on his hand. he was fiddling with the white plastic straw that came with his drink.

Keith made a weird face, looking a bit uncomfortable.

“Here I'll go first. I'm 22, I'm in school for astrophysics, which, let me tell you, worst decision of my life. And I like to do a lot of things for fun. I like swimming, I like surfing, going to the movies, hang out with my friends, and other typical university student things.”

 

Keith paused, thinking. He counted off on his fingers, “I'm also 22, I'm not in school right now, and… I don't really know what I like to do for fun. I don’t have a lot of friends.”

 

“Really? The people in the park don’t like you that much?” he meant for it to sound sarcastic, but he must have done something wrong, because Keith answered it seriously.

 

“No. They’ve hated me since we met. They don’t like the fact that I’m not scared of them.”

 

Go figure.

 

“Well, I guess we’ll have to hang out more. We’ll make you some friends and do something fun.”

 

At that moment, the waitress from before came up to them, asking what they wanted to order. Lance ordered his usual order, -a hamburger and onion rings- but Keith ordered two sides of fries, and asked for hot sauce on the side. He also listed off the various allergies he had, which included dairy, sesame, and raw potatoes.

 

Lance thought that was a little strange, apparently so did their waitress, as she asked if that was all. When he reassured her, she nodded her head and walked back to the kitchen to give in their orders.

 

Lance was watching after her when Keith broke the silence.

 

“Why are you doing this? Why do you want to be friends with me?”

 

“Well I think you’re cool, and we keep running into each other, I was thinking, ‘why not?’”

 

Keith made a face like he wanted to say, something more, but he chose not to and stayed quiet.

 

“Look,” Lance said, leaning forward with his elbows on the table, “let’s talk about something else, like what do you think about sharks?”

 

-

 

A little while later, after the food came out, Keith excused himself to the bathroom.

 

As soon as he left Lance got a text on his phone. It’s from Hunk.

 

**Traitor #1: Are you on a date????**

 

**Me: What?**

 

**Me: No**

 

**Traitor #1: Mom says you’re on a date with someone**

 

**Traitor #1: She says he’s really cute**

 

**Me: No it’s not a date**

 

**Me: It’s just a friend**

 

**Traitor #1: ….okay**

 

Lance shook his head. It wasn’t a date Hunk. He was about to text back when Keith slid back into the otherside of the booth.

 

“So where were we then?”

 

-

 

From there, the conversation flowed smoothly. Lance directed most of it, but that was fine. Keith was attentive and responsive, and as long as Lance avoided more personal questions about things like family and friends, everything was fine.

 

In fact, Lance was having a lot of fun. When Keith got talking, especially when it was something he was interested in, he lit up.

 

He became so expressive that Lance was kind of surprised. He had to wonder if Keith got to do this often, speaking loudly and openly.

 

But soon enough it was over. They finished at the diner and Lance paid (much to the chagrin of Keith).

 

They walked out of the diner and back to the park.

 

“Thank you for the food, by the way.” Keith turned towards Lance, stopping close to where they had been before.

 

“No problem, it was fun.”

 

Keith nodded, before looking away.

 

“I’ve got to go. Bye, Lance.”

 

Lance waved at Keith as he walked away, watching him disappear out of the park.

 

With a sigh, Lance started on his own way home, in the opposite direction of where Keith went.

 

* * *

 

“I’m home!”

 

Shiro looked up from where he was focusing on the third page of a magazine. The page fazed through his fingers, falling back into place. Lance heard Shiro curse softly under his breath.

 

“Sorry. How long have you been trying to read that, by the way?”

 

Shiro’s head flopped onto the back of the couch. His eyes were closed. “Three hours,” Shiro let out in a sigh.

 

“Ah. Sorry man.”

 

“It’s fine, I was ready to give up anyway.” Shiro opened his eyes to look at Lance. “Anyway, how was your-”

 

Shiro blinked at him. “Why are you red?”

 

“What?”

 

“Your aura, or magic, or whatever. It’s red.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhhhhhhhhh......  
> Sorry? I swear I meant to update sooner, but life and school isn't kind to me. Sorryyyyyy
> 
> Please yell at me on Tumblr @good-vibes-mostly
> 
> (also, how do you add links???)


	7. Confusion, just, lots of confusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance and Keith hang out. Lance is very confused.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been in the works longer than chapter 6 has existed. I don't know what I'm doing, but I keep fogetting how much I love this story.

“Maybe it’s because I’m happy?”

 

Shiro squinted at him. “No, you’ve always been blue. It’s fading now, you’re kind of… purple.”

 

Lance looked down at his arms. He didn’t think he looked any different from usual.

 

“I don’t know. It's probably nothing. I can- hey, are you okay?” Lance glanced up to see Shiro with his eyes closed, holding his head.

 

Shiro waved him off. “It’s nothing, my head just hurts,” he rubbed at his temples. He blinked again and looked back up at Lance.

 

"Maybe I was wrong. You're still blue, it must have been my imagination."

 

"Yeah okay, I guess." Lance hung up his jacket. "You wanna hear what I did today?"

 

-

 

Lance was getting kind of worried about Shiro. They were coming on a week and a half  of him helping Shiro out. He was seeing things more often and it was stressing Lance out. Shiro would sometimes just stare at Lance when he came home, muttering to himself in a language Lance didn't know.

 

Although, he didn't phase out more than normal, so that was good.

 

Lance just really wished that Allura would hurry the fuck up with her spell.

 

-

 

Over the course of the next few days, he ran into Keith 6 separate times before he made the other boy give him his phone number.

 

(“I don’t have a phone.”

 

“I  _ literally _ just saw you text someone!”)

 

He then continued to run into Keith 6 more times without them having planned anything, even though they had started texting.

 

-

 

**Me: So what’s your whole deal?**

 

**Grumpy McMullet: What do you mean**

 

**Me: You always seem to be looking for something**

 

**…**

 

Lance frowned at his phone for the fifth time in ten minutes. Keith still hadn’t answered, but he’d definitely read the text.

 

**Me: Keith? Buddy? You there?**

 

**Me: You don’t have to tell me**

 

**Me: I get it if it's personal, but I can’t say I’m not super curious**

 

**…**

 

**Grumpy McMullet: My uncle went missing about a month ago**

 

**Grumpy McMullet: The police stopped looking**

 

**Me: Aw dude I’m sorry**

 

**Me: I didn’t want to make you upset**

 

**Grumpy McMullet: Whatever**

 

-

 

It had been two days since he had seen Keith. Yeah, they’d never planned to meet up but still. It was unusual that they hadn’t run into each other. Although, Lance had a sneaking suspicion that while he wasn’t seeing Keith, Keith was seeing him. Over the course of the two days he’d sometimes get a prickling sensation -like someone was staring- on the back of his neck, but when he’d turn around there was no one there. This led him to believe Keith was avoiding him.

 

Usually it was like some divine force was causing them to stumble upon one another.

 

Which is exactly how they saw each other next.

 

“Hey! Watch where you’re- Lance?”

 

Keith blinked at him. He was dressed really similarly to how he had been dressed the night they had first introduced themselves. A cropped black hoodie, black track pants, black shoes, thin gold necklace, and rings . The only thing that was different was a red bandana hanging around his neck that Lance suspected he used as a face mask.

 

He had seen him wear a face mask a few times before. A black fabric one that fit his aesthetic. Thinking back, Lance wondered how that red cloak fit his punk-ish style, other than the colour.

 

He pulled Keith onto a walkway off the sidewalk. “Hey. How have you been.”

 

“Fine.”

 

They stood there for a few seconds, Lance noticing his hand was still on Keith’s arm so he pulled it away.

 

Lance sighed. “Look, I know you’ve been avoiding me. I gotta be honest, it's got me kinda miffed. I kinda thought we were friends.”

 

“We met less than a month ago.”

 

“Yeah and?”

 

Keith rolled his eyes. “That’s not really long enough to ‘make friends’.”

 

“Of course it is!”

 

Keith stepped onto the sidewalk, heading back in the direction he was before. “Lance, I don’t have time for this. I’m busy.”

 

“Keith I can help you!”

 

“I doubt you could.”

 

“Look, Keith,” Lance pulled him off the sidewalk again, this time down an alley.  When they were far enough that people wouldn’t be able to hear their conversation,  Lance stopped. “I know you’re a witch.”

 

Keith’s eyebrows pulled together. “How do you-?”

 

“My great grandfather was a witch, so I have an affinity for sensing magic. Also, the second time I saw you you were performing a spell that turned your eyes gold. And also also, I’ve seen you use magic casually when you think people aren’t watching.”

 

“I know you’re trying to track someone down. I have contacts with people all over the city, let me help you.”

 

Keith seemed to consider it. “Who are your contacts?

 

-

 

Lance had a problem.

 

His mama would claim that his heart was too big but he’d say that he was just plain stupid.

 

He was already helping -or at least trying to help- Shiro, but now he had agreed to take on the task of helping Keith. Thankfully, Keith was alive. 

 

But, that on top of his school work and his work work was causing some serious breakouts to appear on his skin. He needed some time to relax and enjoy a good face mask.

 

“You can barely see them! When someone has ‘serious breakouts’ you’d at least think of highschool me.”

 

…Which made him wonder why he had invited Pidge over to his place to relax as well.

 

He looked over from where he was putting on a face mask to his bed where Pidge was. She was laying sprawled out on his sheets, hair tied back and a mask already covering her face.

 

"You'd still be in high school if you hadn't graduated two years early," he continued to slather the mask on his face. "Just because my face looks perfect in comparison to your gremlin face doesn't mean I still don't get breakouts."

 

Pidge didn't say anything, but he could practically feel her rolling her eyes. It was like a tingly presence on his back. Wait a sec-

 

"Cut that out!" 

 

Pidge snickered and Lance could hear her arm flop back on the bed. 

 

-

 

"Yo gremlin! We need to wash the masks off now!" He began rubbing the mask into his face more running the tap to wipe it off.

 

He'd gotten half his face done when he noticed that Pidge still wasn't in the bathroom.

 

"Pidge! Don't just wipe your face on my sheets!"

 

“Yeah, yeah, give me a sec. I just need to finish texting Akira, you know, my best friend since childhood?”

 

Lance stopped rubbing at the mask and thought for a second. “Oh yeah, I remember Akira. When are we gonna meet him?”

 

“You probably won’t. He’s shy and even more of a cryptid than me.”

 

"Lame!"

 

"Fine," she shoved him out of the way of the sink. "Guess you'll never get to meet him."

 

"Wha-? Pidge!"

 

-

 

Lance walked into the cafe and took a deep breath. He loved the smell of coffee. He glanced over into the corner and there was Keith. Or someone else dressed really fucking creepy in a black hooded cloak.

 

He walked over. "Hey Keith!" He placed a hand on his shoulder, causing Keith to look up. 

 

"Woah, you okay?"

 

His skin was sallow and looked dull. He had dark bags under his eyes and wasn't even properly looking at Lance. He looked  _ tired _ .

 

"Yeah," Keith turned away from him and tugged the hood of his cloak down further. 

 

Lance sat beside him. "Hey man, seriously, you can talk to me."

 

"It's just," Keith rubbed at his eyes. "I miss my brother and I'm doing everything I can to find him and it's  **not** enough."

 

"Well hey, you still haven't met with my contacts yet, have you?

 

"...Fuck."

 

"I'm gonna take that as a no."

 

Keith rubbed his hands down his face. 

 

"Look, I'm not anything for the rest of the day, why don't I take you to meet them? There are three that I think could help you."

 

Keith nodded his head. "Yeah, let's do that."

 

They collected their stuff and started to walk to where they could find Lance's contacts.

 

"By the way, not to pry, but didn’t you say that your  _ uncle _ was missing? Not your  _ brother _ ?"

 

"He's technically my uncle, but he's closer in age to me than my dad, and he's been more like my brother for years."

 

"Oh."

 

-

 

Lance had three contacts that may be able to help Keith. They weren't that far from each other, so he figured that they'd be able to visit everyone that day. 

 

They visited the first two contacts and got nothing. Keith couldn't even mention a name before they were ushered out. Lance's contacts kept saying something about him having a 'bad energy'. 

 

So Lance went in to ask about then himself, but it was no use  They hadn't even heard of someone who'd gone missing in the last few months, nevermind the last few weeks.

 

The last contact was interesting. 

 

"So this last guy, he's kinda weird, and he doesn't really talk to outsiders, so just let me talk okay?"

 

Keith nodded and Lance opened the door. 

 

The front office space was quite bare. It had a dark grey colour scheme, and no decorations. Two waiting chairs, a water dispenser, a marble countertop, and a closed door were the only things filling the space.

 

"Ulaz! Are you around?"

 

The man himself appeared from behind the door, wiping his hands off with a cloth. 

 

"Lance. I see you've taken to- oh."

 

Ulaz was looking past Lance at Keith, who looked surprised.

 

"Ulaz." Keith rushed forward and hugged him, surprising Lance. What surprised him even more was the fact that Ulaz not only hugged him back, but smiled down at him.

 

"Is there-?" 

 

"No, Keith nothing new. I'm sorry."

 

"Uhm? What?"

 

Keith let go of Ulaz and turned towards him.

 

"Ulaz is my uncle." Ulaz was smiling at that. Faintly, but still smiling. Lance opened his mouth, but Keith cut him off.

 

"From my mom's side. He's been helping me too."

 

"As terrible as this is, it has gotten you to come and talk to us, so I can't say it's all bad." Ulaz clasped his hands behind his back. "Is that all you here to ask me about? Because while I do enjoy seeing you, I am very busy, as you know."

 

"Yeah, sorry Ulaz, I just thought you might be able to help out." Lance said, rubbing at the back of his neck.

 

"I don’t mind. But you and your… friend, must get going, I have work to do."

 

For some reason, this caused Keith to go red and leave the office in a huff. Lance stared after him, confused when he heard Ulaz chuckle.

 

"I'm not sure what's going on."

 

"Don't worry, he’s  like that. But," Ulaz paused, and suddenly, the very scary man that Lance knew he could be was back. "If you hurt that boy, life will not be kind to you."

 

Lance gulped. "Yes sir."

 

Ulaz stared for a little longer, before nodding, and Lance took that as his cue to get out of there. The fuck was that?? What just happened? What was going on?

 

-

 

He found Keith a little ways away playing with a dog.

 

Well, it was more of a wolf, as the "dog" was easily the size of Keith himself. 

 

"Who's this?"

 

Keith looked up as Lance stopped in front of him. "This is my dog." He said as if that's just something Lance should have known.

 

"Yeah, uh, where did you hide him? Cuz I didn't see him on our way here." The dog was staring up at him with these giant yellow eyes that almost glowed. It was mostly a dark grey colour, with pattern lines in white and a lighter grey.

 

"He just shows up sometimes. That's his thing."

 

Keith stood up and brushed his hands off. "We should probably go. This neighborhood's sketchy." He started to walk away, leaving Lance beside the giant wolfdog. 

 

"So you're just gonna leave him?" Lance asked as he caught up to Keith. He glanced back at the dog, but the dog just wasn't there.

 

"He's gone."

 

"Yeah he does that. Probably at my house."

 

Lance rubbed at his temples. "Fucking witches…"

 

"What?"

 

"Nothing!"

 

-

 

They had decided that they should get food, and we're on the bus when Lance got a text.

 

**Space Princess: I'm in your apartment**

 

**Space Princess: There's a very attractive man on your couch**

 

**Me: Llura, you're a lesbian?**

 

**Space Princess: And?**

 

**Me: Whatever**

 

**Me: Wait! You're at my house holy shit!**

 

**Me: That was faster than I thought!**

 

**Space Princess: Yes, now hurry up and get here**

 

He turned his head towards Keith. "Hey, would you mind coming over to my place?"

 

-

 

Lance was super excited. Allura would be able to help Shiro, who would finally be able to move on, and then they could help Keith! It'd be great!

 

"So my cousin's here, and you'll meet her, but there's also this ghost that I've been helping for the past few weeks, here, so if you see anything, or feel anything weird, that's probably just him, but he's really cool."

 

Keith nodded, but his eyes were kind of unfocused. He looked like he was staring at something, but there wasn't anything in the elevator to stare at. 

 

_ Ding! _

 

The doors opened and they stepped out, Lance leading the way to his apartment. 

 

"So my cousin's over right now, and she’s a” he leaned forward and whispered “witch, too.”

 

Keith nodded, but he still wasn’t really looking like he was paying attention. Lance opened the door and  stepped inside, kicking off his shoes and telling Keith to as well. 

 

"Lance!"

 

He turned and there was Allura, sitting on the couch. She got up and rushed over to hug him, nearly knocking him over.

 

"Hey Allura. This is my friend. Keith, this is my cousin-" he turned around to see Keith clutching at his head and rubbing his eyes. He was blinking rapidly, his eyes flashing between normal and a glowing gold. Keith squeezed his eyes tight, and when he opened them, they were looked like molten gold.

 

Keith turned towards the couch. He blinked some more before he whispered "Takashi?"

 

-

 

A lot of things happened after Keith spoke. Firstly, Keith started walking forward, towards Shiro. Shiro, freaked out, causing his ghostly powers to knock things off of the coffee table and couch, and then he poofed out of existence. This caused Keith to shout 'no!' and start running forward, accidently tripping over Lance's shoes, knocking into Lance, who fell over. Allura, who was still hugging Lance was brought down as well, ending up with all of them sprawled in Lance's front hall/living room space.

 

That was a lot.

 

Then, one of Lance's neighbours knocked on the door, wondering what was going on because they had made a really loud thud noise. This caused Lance to have to explain what was happening without letting them see inside his apartment, as inside, Allura was working on bringing Shiro back from the Astral Plane. 

 

Resulting in where they were now. 

 

Everyone was sitting on the couch, listening to Shiro explain what he could remember and what was happening. He explained to Lance how him and Keith were related (with Shiro finally remembering). 

 

And  _ duh.  _

 

Lance wanted to smack himself in the forehead. Of course that’s why they’d met in the alleyway. Keith was looking into  **Shiro’s** death. Shiro was Keith’s uncle. Keith was Shiro’s kid. Why the fuck didn’t he notice before?

 

He was pondering over his massive oversight (also, why didn't he ask the name of Keith’s missing person in the first place anyway?), when Allura piped up.

 

"Well, this will make finding his body much easier."

 

Everyone looked at her, confused. "What do you mean, why are we 'finding his body'? We have to help him move on so he doesn't go crazy."

 

She looked at him like he was stupid.

 

"Because Lance, he's not dead."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is getting close to my planned ending, but I may extend this a little bit, I dunno. Hope you enjoyed, please bother me on tumblr I'm lonely. 
> 
> @good-vibes-mostly
> 
> (Still don't know how to use links)


	8. Not dead, just a ghost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blushing and explanations. And shenanigans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Pride month! (Yes, I know I'm a day late) We're actually getting towards the ending I had planned for this fic pretty soon, so there may only be a few chapters left! Now that school and stuff is over, I should have more time to work on fics, but I'm also hoping post some of the other things I'm working on too
> 
> Anyway, thanks for waiting, enjoy!

"Is he alright?" Allura asked.

 

Keith was currently standing in the kitchen, speaking in hushed tones. After the revelation that Shiro wasn't in fact dead, a strange look fell over his face and he said that he had to make some calls.

 

"I think so? It's hard to say, but I think he's happy that he found Shiro. He's been looking for him for a long time."

 

Lance turned his eyes back onto Shiro. He wasn't a ghost, according to Allura. Which of course he believed, because his cousin was always more in tune with magical aspects than he was. But it still made him feel weird.

 

Here's the thing, the way Lance's powers were, meant that he could see people's souls. He could see souls all the time, technically even in living people, but generally, their living bodies disguised the look of the soul, so he couldn't see them. Which means, it wasn't really Lance's fault that he couldn't tell the difference between a dead person's soul and an alive person's soul.

 

Usually, living souls wore their bodies.

 

But it did explain all the weird things that happened with Shiro. Behaviour wise anyway. He must have been going back to his body whenever he disappeared. And, because of his living body, he had a more solid connection to the realm of the living. Which would have been the reason that he didn't lose his personality, or just completely fall apart.

 

Huh.

 

The more Lance thought about it, the more he felt like he was an idiot.

 

Keith came back into the living room and sat on the couch beside Lance. He was rubbing his forefinger and his thumb together, staring at the floor. He seemed to be lost in thought.

 

"Well Keith," his head snapped up. "If we are to perform this tracking spell, then I will need something of Shiro's, something like a piece of clothing, a trinket of some sort," Allura said.

 

Lance turned to look at Shiro, who was standing in front of Keith by the couch. Keith looked like he was staring right at Shiro's kneecaps, but Lance knew he couldn't actually see him. Keith had explained that a friend of his had placed a spell on him, allowing him to be able to track Shiro’s aura by sight, but that had worn off now.

 

"Do you have any preferences? It should be something that you don't mind us burning." Lance didn't want to complete the ritual and find out that they had accidentally burned one of Shiro's favourite shirts.

 

"I can't even remember what I used to own. But I trust you guys to chose."

 

"We can do that."

 

 

* * *

 

 

All of them had piled into Allura's car. They were heading to Keith's place to get something of Shiro’s for the ritual. Keith and Allura sat in the front, while Lance and Shiro were cooped up in the back.

 

Well, Lance was cooped up in the back. Shiro, on the other hand had all the room he needed because he could just put his legs through the seat in front of him.

 

Lance was only a little bit upset by this.

 

Eventually, they made it to a road in the middle of nowhere. Keith had them stop at a dirt path that led off to what Lance could only assume was his house (it looked like a shack more than a house). As soon as they stopped, he jumped out of the car and ran over to the front door.

 

He was only gone for a few minutes before he appeared in the doorway again, carrying a box of something. He loaded it into the front seat before he got into the back, piling next to Lance.

 

Shiro joined Allura and the box up front, passing right through the chair.

 

As Allura pulled away, Lance turned to Keith.

 

"What's in the box?"

 

Keith glanced over at him. "That's all Shiro’s things. Everything I could find. There should be something suitable for the spell in there."

 

Even though Keith had started out speaking to Lance, by the end of his sentence, his eyes had wondered out the window. His leg was bouncing up and down and his fingers were tapping out a rhythm on his knee.

 

"Hey, are you alright?"

 

"Hmm? Oh, I'm just- nervous?" His voice went higher at the last word, as if he couldn't really decide if he wanted to use it.

 

"Anxious?"

 

"Yeah, that." Keith looked away again. "My brother's been missing for nearly two months and now we're gonna go find his body, just like that."

 

"Isn't that a good thing?"

 

Keith shrugged. He didn't look back at Lance, and after a few minutes, he figured the conversation was over.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When they got back to Lance's apartment, Allura took the box of stuff and shooed Lance and Keith away, claiming that she needed the space and quiet to do the spell.

 

Despite Lance's protests of it being _his apartment, you can't do this Allura!_ , the two found themselves outside of the building, watching the last few rays of light as the sun dipped behind the city.

 

He turned to Keith. "So, what now? We have," he mimes looking at a watch on his wrist "however the fuck long it takes for Allura to finish the ritual. What do you wanna do?"

 

Keith shrugged. He looked lost in thought, so it surprised him when his stomach growled really loudly.

 

Lance laughed at that. "Yeah, I haven't eaten since lunch. You wanna grab something?"

 

"Can we go to the new cafe downtown?"

 

-

 

The cafe Keith had mentioned was a small locally owned business that had just opened up. Despite this and the time, the place was buzzing with customers.

 

They had managed to snag a booth, and had already gotten their food, which looked and smelled delicious, but Lance couldn't eat. He couldn't eat because Keith had this pouty, sad look on his face and it was really distracting.

 

"Okay, what?" Lance asked as Keith stared a hole into the table.

 

His eyes jerked up to meet Lance's, as if surprised that the person he went out to eat with wanted to talk to him.

 

"What?"

 

"What's up with your face, why's it doing that?"

 

Keith scowled, rubbing his mouth with the corner of his sleeve. "My face isn't doing anything."

 

"Yeah it was! You were being all pouty and staring off into the distance like-" Lance crossed his arms, imitating Keith's expression, with perhaps a tad exaggeration.

 

"I do not look like that!" He said, totally not pouting harder at that.

 

"Yes you do! See, you're doing it right now!"

 

"Whatever," he huffed, looking away from Lance.

 

"No, but seriously dude, what's up? C'mon, you can tell me."

 

There was a long pause before Keith spoke. His voice was low, and Lance had to lean into to hear him properly. "It's Shiro. I don't really get the whole, 'not being dead' thing. He's a ghost, you said he was a ghost, so how is he still alive? It's been freaking me out, I don't usually deal with death and ghosts and stuff."

 

Lance thought about that for a bit. He actually didn't really fully get what was happening, but he'd resigned himself to not knowing things before. In the end, he decided on just telling Keith all he knew.

 

"Well, ghosts are made because the soul or whatever of a person is still on earth but outside of the body. Technically, all of us are what Shiro is, but we're wearing our bodies still. Think of it like playing a video game. With a body, you have the controller, and you can interact with the game, but as a soul, all you can really do is watch. Souls usually only leave this plane of existence because they lose their grip, or they lose their attachment to here. Usually, that's a person's body, but it can also be a feeling, or a task the person needs to do."

 

Keith was staring at him intently, making Lance feel slightly nervous. He could feel the blood start of redden his cheeks as he continued trying to explain what was happening.

 

"What Allura thinks happened is that some kind of magic was able to remove Shiro's soul from his body, and for some reason, kept his body alive. It doesn't actually really make that much sense, but that's the best we could figure. He's not _dead_ , he's just, a ghost." Lance finished with a shrug, taking a sip of his drink.

 

Keith's face scrunched up, as if he was trying really hard to see something far away. In reality, he was just staring down at the table. Finally, he let out a huff before slouching back in his seat and looking at Lance.

 

"That's so weird. You ghost people are so weird."

 

Lance scoffed at that. "What do you mean 'you ghost people'? As if your kind aren't weirder."

 

"My kind?"

 

Lance checked to make sure other people weren't paying attention. "You know," he wiggled his fingers in front of him, trying to copy what he'd seen Keith and even Pidge do before. "Your kind."

 

Something seemed to spark in Keith's eyes, something dangerous, which worried Lance. He started to lean forward across the table, crowding into Lance's space. A new blush swept over his features as Keith's face got closer, effectively reducing Lance's line of sight to just him. He gulped as Keith stared him down, unsure of what was happening.

 

Keith's eyes glittered and Lance watched as his lips pulled into a smirk. He could feel Keith's breath fan across his lips as he whispered "You mean this?"

 

Under the table, Lance felt something sharply tap his shin before a shock went through his body. Lance jolted in his seat, his knee hitting the underside of the table. This caused his drink to slosh out of the cup and onto the table, where it started to drip off the side.

 

The other customers in the cafe turned to look at them as Keith started to laugh, but they quickly turned away again when they saw Lance's helpless expression.

 

"Oh ha ha, very funny Keith, spilling my drink." Lance huffed.

 

Eventually, Keith laughter died down into quiet giggles and he started to help Lance clean up the spilled drink. When the table was dry again, Keith sat back, and smiled at Lance.

 

"You should've seen your face. It was like," Keith made an overexaggerated surprised face before going back to that dorky grin he was wearing.

 

Lance frowned at him.

 

"Aww, now look who's pouting."

 

Lance deepen his frown, furrowing his eyebrows and turning his face a bit away from Keith. Never be told that he _wasn't_ dramatic.

 

"Come on Lance, look, how about I get you another drink?"

 

Lance gave the smallest of nods, which caused a grin to spread on Keith's face.

 

"Okay, I'll be right back."

 

"Wait," Keith turned back to look at him, an eyebrow raised in question.

 

"...I want an iced coffee."

 

"You got it."

 

-

 

The line at the cash had gotten pretty full as they were talking, so Keith was standing closer to the doors than he was the counter. Lance watched as he waited in line, looking super calm and casual.

 

Lance on the other hand, was feeling kind of flustered. As he watched Keith, his mind kept replaying when their faces were close together, right before Keith kicked him.

 

Had Keith always been that attractive? Like, Lance knew that his friend was attractive from the start, with his big, dark eyes and that mysterious aura around him, but this was different. When their faces were that close together, Lance could see just how unnaturally pretty Keith's eyes were. And how smooth his skin was. And how soft and plush his lips looked. Not to mention how he laughed, bright and bubbly and so, so happy.

 

Lance felt the blush creep it's way back up his neck. God, he'd been blushing a whole lot today, hadn't he? Stupid Keith and his stupid good looks.

 

Stupid crush.

 

He got out his phone.

 

**Me: Fine you win**

 

**Traitor #1: Win what, exactly?**

 

**Me: You know what, don't be a dick Hunk**

 

**Traitor #1: Nah, can't seem to remember, you gotta tell me**

 

**Me: Fuck you**

 

**Traitor #1: Love you too**

 

**Traitor #1: Now are you finally gonna admit that you have a crush on that Keith guy or what?**

 

**Me: …**

 

**Me: He's so pretty Hunk**

 

**Me: And he's nice to me but he also literally just shocked me into spilling my drink but he's really nice**

 

**Traitor #1: ...okay?**

 

**Traitor #1: As much as I'd love to continue to hear about how great he is or whatever**

 

**Traitor #1: I've got to go collect some money, so I'll be off**

 

**Me: K bye**

 

**Me: Wait**

 

**Me: DID YOU FUCKERS MAKE A BET ON MY LOVE LIFE LIFE AGAIN?!?!??**

 

**Me: HUNK**

 

**Me: I'll get you back for this**

 

Lance turned his phone off with an annoyed sigh, just as a plastic cup was placed in front of him.

 

"Something happen?" Keith asked as he plopped into his seat.

 

"My friends are just being the worst."

 

"Oh yeah?" Keith crossed his arms over his chest. "Sounds rough."

 

"They are the worst best friends in the history of best friends." Lance took a long sip of his iced coffee, glaring at his phone.

 

"I dunno. A few of my old best friends were pretty bad. Actually, my current best friend is pretty bad."

 

Lance's eyes flicked up to Keith. "Is that a challenge?"

 

-

 

They stayed at that cafe for a little while longer. Lance conceded that he was wrong, and that Keith did in fact have the worst best friend story between the two of them.

 

Apparently it was normal for Keith's friends to nearly get him arrested. Go figure.

 

"I can't believe you stole a car."

 

"That time was harder, because I actually had to hot wire it then."

 

Lance made a x motion with his forearms. "Wait wait wait, hold up. 'That time'? What'd you mean 'that time'?"

 

"Hmm? Oh, well that was the second time." Keith answered off-handedly. "Anyway-" he made to continue his story, but Lance cut him off.

 

"Dude, you were 14. What were you doing stealing cars before that?"

 

Keith looked down, scratching at his cheek. "That how I met Shiro, actually."

 

Lance squinted at him. "What?"

 

"Yeah, when I was 10, my dad said that someone was coming over to visit, and I didn't really care at first, but then, when Shiro came over my dad started paying a lot of attention to him, and being a jealous kid, I stole Shiro's car." Keith finished his story with a shrug, not looking Lance in the eye.

 

"What?!"

 

"Yeah, Shiro was 17 at the time, so he drove himself over to my house, and he left his keys in the car, that made it really easy."

 

"Dude that's insane. When I was 10, I was like, playing with action figures and still crying when I fell down the stairs!" Keith raised an eyebrow at that, but Lance ignored him. "Does anyone meet you normally?"

 

Keith opened his mouth to respond, but he paused, his face scrunching in concentration. A few times he looked like he was about to say something, but then thought better of it and continued to think. Finally, he settled on "my current best friend I met because Shiro's friend brought his little sister along when they were hanging out."

 

And yeah, okay that's normal. A simple nice way to meet someone. But then Keith continued to say-

 

"But I grew up in a house in the middle of the desert and we were exploring these caves near my house. There was this mini landslide outside one of the caves and her and I got stuck in a ravine for a while."

 

"God, you're so weird," Lance said through a laugh.

 

"Hey!" Keith's indignant shout made Lance laugh harder, and eventually he heard Keith join in.

 

**_Ding!_ **

 

Speaking of friends…

 

**Traitor #2: Yo**

 

**Traitor #2: Botw at my place**

 

**Traitor #2: Me and Hunk figured out how to make single player games multiplayer**

 

**Traitor #2: It breaks the game really bad**

 

"Hey Keith? Do you want to maybe meet a few people normally?"

 

 

* * *

 

 

Lance hadn't told Hunk or Pidge that he was gonna bring Keith, just said that he wanted to bring a friend. The other two sometimes randomly brought other people to hang out, plus, he knew that they'd love Keith, so it was fine.

 

And if they didn't, well, then he'd deal with it.

 

"Okay, we're almost there, just a few more streets." He glanced over at Keith when there wasn't a response. He was texting someone, seemingly too engrossed in whatever conversation he was having to respond to Lance.

 

He flicked his ear.

 

"Hey!"

 

"Pay attention."

 

Keith tucked his phone back into his pocket. "I am. I was just checking something."

 

"Yeah, sure." Lance rolled his eyes as he continued walking ahead.

 

They continued to walk in silence until Lance spotted the Holt's residence.

 

"There it is!" He turned to Keith, grabbing his hand to speed up their strides. He dragged Keith all the way to the front door before stopping.

 

"Now, they already know about magic and stuff, one of them is actually a witch, so it's fine to talk about magic and stuff around them."

 

Keith nodded, blushing slightly. "Uhm..." he raised their hands and Lance quickly let go. He felt his face flush as well, but if anyone asked, it was from walking outside in the cold.

 

He grabbed the door knob and pushed the door open. "Hey Pidge, we're here!" He called out into the house, slipping off his jacket.

 

A head of messy light brown hair popped out of the hallway. A devious grin spread across her face as she marched up to them.

 

"So this is-" before she could finish that sentence, a snap came from behind him. It sounded way too loud and seemed to echo across the room. Lance glanced back to look at Keith, seeing that the snap came from him.

 

When he turned back to Pidge, he was confused. She was opening her mouth as if to say something, but no sound came out. When she noticed, an annoyed look crossed her face before she shut her mouth. She looked meaningfully at Keith, miming zipping her lips shut.

 

Lance stepped back so that he could look at both of them at the same time. Keith dropped his hand and Pidge finally spoke.

 

"My spells are better."

 

Keith smirked. "You're just mad that my magic's stronger, _Pidge._ "

 

"No I'm not." As she spoke, Lance noticed that the cuffs of her jeans had -somehow- caught fire.

 

"Pidge your pants!" He was about to rush over to help, but she just kicked her legs out and the flames dies down.

 

"Ha ha, very funny." Her posture was a mirror of Keith's. Both were leaning their weight on one leg, and were crossing their arms, but the looks on their faces were opposites. While Keith had a smug grin on his face, Pidge sported a scowl.

 

"Umm, what just happened?"

 

Everyone turned to look at where Hunk was standing in the archway of Pidge’s kitchen.

 

"Hey Hunk, this is Keith." Lance introduced, gesturing behind him.

 

"Hey." A small wave with his right hand. "Nice hair."

 

Lance turned back to see that Keith's hair was sticking up and out at odd angles around his head. Keith reached up to pat down his hair, and then he turned towards Pidge and pushed her in the face. It was much lighter than Lance expected, and he almost thought nothing had happened, but then-

 

"Oh fuck you." Pidge said as she pulled off her glasses. The lenses and the frame had been coated in a thin sheet of ice that was already beginning to melt onto the floor. Pidge shook them, making most of the ice break off of the glasses.

 

She put them back on and turned back to Keith, frowning, and pulled him into a hug, which he reciprocated.

 

"Well," Lance said, finally closing the front door. "So much for a normal meeting."

 

Keith and Pidge separated, and Keith ruffled her hair. To Lance's surprise, she let him, even though whenever _he_ tried, she'd hiss like a cat and smack his hand away.

 

"So I'm guessing you two know each other?"

 

"Yeah, this is my best friend since childhood, who I can never get to play video games with me, so I'm glad you brought him." She dragged Keith over to the couch, making him sit down beside Hunk. Pidge wedged herself into the side of the couch, leaving room for Lance.

 

He plopped himself down between the two of them, but turned to face Pidge. "I thought your best friend was named 'Akira'?"

 

"I am." Lance turned to face Keith, their noses bumping at because of how close they were. They both jumped, and Lance just leaned as far back into the couch as he could, ignoring Pidge’s snickers.

 

"My uh, first name is Akira, I just usually use my middle name."

 

"Oh, same, kinda. My first name is Leandro, but 'Lance' has just always been my nickname."

 

A tiny foot kicked Lance in the back, making him turn back to Pidge. "Yeah, yeah it's basically the same for all of us, now grab a controller so we can fail at being the hero of Hyrule."

 

-

 

When Pidge had told him that they'd managed to make a single player game multiplayer, he'd thought she'd meant that they'd maybe added more characters into the game.

 

But no.

 

What they'd done is somehow hack the game to split the control of Link between four controllers. Somehow, two of the controllers, (Pidge’s and Keith's) controlled the actions involving the arms, and the other two (Hunk’s and Lance's) controlled all the actions involving the legs.

 

It was chaos.

 

Randomly, Link would spasm, and run face first into a wall when trying to walk in a straight line, and other times he'd accidentally throw whatever item he was holding off a cliff.

 

It was terrible, and so much fun.

 

Eventually, they got a hang of it, getting used to that fact that every time the game received input, it switched which controller was in charge.

 

For Keith and Pidge, it was pretty simple, most of the arm actions really only required one button press or one movement of the joystick. For Lance and Hunk, on the other hand, well let's just say that Link isn't the smoothest runner in Hyrule (they learned very early to avoid cliff edges).

 

It was great for Lance to be able to hang out with his friends again, and the addition of Keith made things so much better. He just seemed to click in their little group, and often Hunk would give Lance knowing looks whenever Keith did so much as bump his shoulder.

 

After a few hours of playing, they decided to call it a night. It was starting to get late, and Lance still needed to get home. He and Keith said their goodbyes, and they left, heading back to Lance's place to see how Allura was doing. Lance hadn't heard from her since they had left, and he was getting a bit worried.

 

When he unlocked his front door, he noticed how the lights were off. When he flipped them on, he found nothing out of place in his living room except for a note on his coffee table that hadn't been there before.

 

He heard Keith shut the door as he read through the note.

 

"Allura went home, and also apparently took Shiro with her to finish the ritual. She'll be back tomorrow though, so we can go look for his body."

 

"Okay." Lance turned to look back at Keith, who was standing in the doorway still.

 

"I guess I should start heading home now." He looked down at his hands, but made no move to leave.

 

"Why don't you just sleep over? It's already pretty late, and you live kinda far, don't you?"

 

"Okay, thanks."

 

 

* * *

 

 

Lance was searching through his linen closet as Keith took a shower. He had gone in first, so he was ready to go to bed, he just had to grab blankets and make sure Keith had clothes.

 

He heard the shower turn off and the bathroom door swing open.

 

"I left some clothes on my bed for you to borrow!" He called out, still facing the closet.

 

He was having trouble finding where the heck he'd stashed his extra pillow. He heard some shuffling behind him, but he didn't pay it too much thought. Finally, he found the extra pillow under a stack of blankets.

 

He grabbed it, pulled, and accidentally sent half of the contents of the closet falling onto the floor.

 

"Damn it." He started to pick up the blankets and sheets, when a pale hand holding a pillow case entered his vision. He looked up to see a smirking Keith wearing his clothing.

 

"Need some help?"

 

-

 

With the two of them working together, it didn't take long to clean up.

 

Afterwards, Lance gathered his blankets and headed to the couch. He started setting up the blankets and the pillow when Keith asked "What are you doing?"

 

"I'm sleeping on the couch. You can take my bed tonight."

 

"What? No, it's your bed, you should take it."

 

Shaking his head, Lance walked up to Keith and placed his hands on his shoulders. "Look, you are my guest. And, as your host, I have to do everything in my power to make you comfortable. So you are going to sleep on that goddamn bed or so help me I will lock you in my room."

 

Keith blinked at him, surprised by his mini outburst. "Okay then."

 

Satisfied, Lance went back to sit on the couch.

 

"Goodnight Keith."

 

"Goodnight Lance."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been waiting to use this as a chapter title for so long. It's actually been the working title for this fic, as well as the document title since I started writing this, so I'm happy to use it


End file.
